The Northern Ireland Executive has been allocated an additional £40 million during the Budget period to allow the Department for Regional Development to continue to take forward a number of major roads.
They include improvements to the A32 Omagh to Enniskillen road and the £8m A32 Cherrymount Link, at Enniskillen. The scheme has been much delayed in that its construction was supposed to start last year. Now, a start time in the fiscal year, April 2008-March 2009 is mooted, provided there isn't a public inquiry. If there is, its start will be delayed by another year.
The link road will divert traffic from the Kesh/Irvinestown/Ballinamallard direction away from Enniskillen town centre via the Tempo Road, and vice-versa, along a .7 mile stretch. The road will be a two-lane, single carriageway (one lane each way), and it will likely include one footpath and a cycleway.
The Roads Service estimate that it will cater for 9,000 vehicles a day. One worrying aspect is the dramatic rise in the cost, from an initial £3.8m to the present £8m. This has been attributed to extending the scheme, undertaking widening work and increases in land value.
However, the inclusion of the £8m in the roads' budget at least gives some comfort to those sceptics who were beginning to fear the scheme would never be implemented.
But, while he was not among those sceptics, Fermanagh Councillor, Gerry McHugh, MLA submitted that the Cherrymount Link and the A32 improvements' schemes were not new. He said he was more concerned at what was not provided for by way of other roads schemes.
"My main contention is the whole roads'' budget. There isn't enough emphasis given to that fact. OK, we have the new dualling between Ballygawley and Dungannon, but there doesn't seem to be a lot in the roads' budget that's aimed at improving our infrastructure.
"The Cherrymount Link and the A32 were already budgeted for, but what we would have liked included was a much greater budget for maintenance".
And, he said he was fearful that, in due course, certain concessions which Peter Robinson had decided on would have to be paid for.
"Things such as freezing the rates may make the Executive look good now, but in three years' time someone is going to have to pay for that. The money has to come out of somewhere, and they're not really saying from where".
In presenting his budget in the Assembly yesterday, the Minister for Finance and Personnel, Peter Robinson, recalled that it was almost 40 years since a Finance Minister elected by the people of Northern Ireland, presented a Budget in a stable political environment.
"Today I am able to do that with a sense of optimism for the future. Though it is only eight months since power returned to Stormont, I believe that today's announcement is yet another sign that
devolution is working".
He recalled that, last October, he had remarked that the draft Budget came with a proud stamp,
'made in Northern Ireland', and went on: "In the next three years it will be the task for the Executive to ensure that it delivers for Northern Ireland. Today, I am pleased to be able to present the Executive's unanimously agreed Budget proposals.
"In October, I announced a draft Budget which delivered the highest ever level of public spending to Northern Ireland, froze domestic Regional Rates for the next three years and capped Industrial
Rates".
